10 Strange Animals You Didn't Know Lived in the United States

Hellbenders, jaguars, alligator gars—they all make their home right here in the USA.

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Craspedacusta sowerbii

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Jellyfish aren't uncommon on, say, the beaches of New Jersey, but the lakes of many states in the U.S. are a much, much different story. Still, the state of Wisconsin has verified multiple sightings of Craspedacusta sowerbii, a species of freshwater jellyfish indigenous to China.

The one-inch jellyfish (or maybe hydra relative) can't cause much harm to humans, though. Their stingers are far too small to even pierce our skin. According to the Nature Conservancy, the best time to see them is in August or September in calm, shallow waters. That is, if you see them at all: it's reported that in some years in the lakes they inhabit, they can be plentiful, while in other years, they are quite scarce.

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Black Spiny Tailed Iguana

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Florida is a state full of weird animals, and the black spiny tailed iguana—an invasive from Central America—is one of the weirder, and more destructive ones. In fact, the problem is so prevalent that, as detailed in the book Eating Aliens, some people have gone on the hunt to eliminate them before they disrupt too much of the area they live in.

If the title Eating Aliens doesn't also give it away, they're edible. There's a risk of salmonella if not cooked properly, but they are said to taste a bit like chicken. Go figure. National Geographic put together a little video on eating iguanas, if you want to see one in action.

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Jaguars

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The bobcat and the mountain lion are more familiar to U.S. citizens, but some people in New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona have reported jaguar sightings north of the border.

Once upon a time, this wasn't entirely uncommon. The species thrived in the American southwest into the 20th century, and historical records indicate ranges in Pennsylvania, Colorado, Ohio, Florida, and more places.

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Alligator gar

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A giant fish that can reach over eight feet with sharp teeth, the alligator gar is a fearsome beast. Mostly ranging in southern states with connections to the Gulf of Mexico, they can currently be found as north as Mississippi, with historic ranges pushing into to Nebraska, Illinois, and a few other states.

The gar retains many primitive features from Cretaceous ancestors, including the ability to breath air if needed. Sharp, rigid scales cover the body of the fish, and its sharp teeth give it a bit more bite than most lake fish. It even has a digestive system shared by sharks but not widely seen in other fish families.

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Lampreys

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Lampreys are fish in the same way that platypuses are mammals. There are enough traits in common to bring it into the same class as fish, but enough differences that it seems like an evolutionary throwback or outlier.

The lamprey has no jaw, instead latching on to prey with rows and rows of teeth and drawing blood as sustenance. The lamprey seen above—a sea lamprey—is, unlike some of its cousins, not native to the fresh waters of the Americas. But it found its way into the Great Lakes, including Lake Michigan and Lake Superior, and ransacked local fish populations. Wildlife officials are still struggling to contain the species.

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Snakefish

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The northern snakefish has an aggressive reputation that precedes it a little, some of it not quite earned. Yes, the fish can be amphibious when needed, can be predatory frequently, can reproduce at alarming rates, and has a habit of dominating where it takes root.

It's found especially in waters near the Washington, DC area, but has taken root in plenty of other places. The species may have been intentionally introduced in some of these fragile ecosystems, inadvertently driving native fish out of their home waters. Researchers are working on containing the invasive (though apparently highly edible, if hard to catch) fish.

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Gemsbok

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The gemsbok or African oryx is native to the savannah of South Africa and other southern African countries. But in 1969, a group was introduced to New Mexico in the White Sands area to give hunters a big game to go after. That group of less than 100 took hold, with more than 3,000 now in the area.

The gemsbok thrived due to a lack of predators in New Mexico, whereas they lived in fear of the lion in their native lands. The National Parks Service is monitoring the animal to see how it might affect the ecology of the White Sands area.

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Hellbender

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It may look like a demon, but this giant salamander has a disposition more befitting its other nickname: mud puppy. They can grow more than two feet long, and live in most states east of the Mississippi outside of New England.

Life isn't always grand for the hellbender. One subspecies, the Ozark variety, has been on the decline for decades, while it's all but extinct in some areas. They tend towards rocky streams, where changes in oxygen levels can destabilize their populations easily.

It's also a bit of a living fossil. Relatives of the hellbender stretch back 160 million years, with little external evidence of evolutionary change.

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Nile Crocodile

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Ahh, Florida. A land of terrifying creatures, many of them invasive. The latest addition to the menagerie of nightmares? The Nile crocodile.

The more common American crocodile and alligator species are fearsome predators, to be sure, but not quite as terrifying or easily provoked as the movies would have you believe. They're often quite inert. The Nile crocodile, though, is more aggressive and territorial, and kills hundreds of humans per year in Africa (as opposed to MAYBE one or two dozen in the U.S. per year like their alligator cousins.)

Researchers are still sorting out how the small group of nile crocodiles got there, and whether or not they bred or interbred. Regardless, given their aggressive reputation and lengths of up to 16 feet, we may want to find that answer sooner than later.

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Jaguarundi

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It may share part of its name with the (much) larger jaguar, but the jaguarundi is hardly an apex predator. At 30 inches from snout to tail, it's a hunter of small rodents. Though common in Central and South America, jaguarundi are limited to a small population of the Gulf Coast subspecies in Texas.

In addition, its closest relative is the mountain lion, making it more of a mini-cougar than a mini-jaguar. They're smart, solitary, adaptive, and relatively sedate (at least for a wild cat species.) However, in Texas, they're threatened by habitat destruction, meaning we might lose one of our big-little cats without some intervention.

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